Blink Twice

Channing Tatum with Polaroid camera

Men are scumbags and tech bro’s the scumbaggiest of them all. Blink Twice isn’t exactly making the most out-there statement for 2024, but in her directorial debut (she also co-wrote) ZoĆ« Kravitz shows she knows her way around a horror movie, can build mood and tension and get performances out of her stars which are genre-familiar and yet fresh. Kravitz’s current partner, Channing Tatum, is particularly excellent as Slater King, a performative billionaire ā€“ think Musk rather than Bezos ā€“ who, as the film opens, is apologising with all his heart in an address to the world. He’s sorry for something. Penitent, pleading, he insists he’s learned from whatever he’s done, is now … Read more

Kimi

Angela at work

When did ZoĆ« Kravitz get so good? In Kimi sheā€™s not only the star of the film but almost the only person in it, and she has a grip like a tractor beam on the attention. It helps that sheā€™s beautiful, of course, but thereā€™s more going on here than that. She plays Angela, a shut-in with a string of emotional conditions, among them germophobia, ADHD, paranoia, neurosis, which suits her job as a human hired to tweak the algorithm of a Siri-like virtual assistant. When someone shouts, ā€œKimi, youā€™re a peckerwood,ā€ sheā€™s the one who later adds definitions for ā€œpeckerwoodā€ in Kimi’s onboard dictionary ā€“ Kimi is always listening. And the covid pandemic, … Read more

The Batman

Catwoman and Batman

The Batman. Letā€™s get the plot out of the way first, since it’s the most straightforward aspect of the latest bulletin from Gotham City. A caped crusader, a trio of villains in the shape of Paul Danoā€™s Riddler, Colin Farrellā€™s Penguin and John Turturroā€™s Carmine Falcone, a campaign of murder being waged against city officials. The mayor dies first, in the opening moments of the film, forcing Commissioner Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) to call in Batman ā€“ he rates the mysterious vigilante but no one else does. Along the way Catwoman (ZoĆ« Kravitz) becomes involved, a good girl in this version, and a crimefighting sidekick, should Batman want one, which he doesnā€™t seem to. … Read more